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Level 3 Bets Work for Lucky Few

By

Brendan Conway

Nov. 11, 2010 5:38 p.m. ET

NEW YORK—A few lucky traders made profits on Thursday with bets that bad news for one Netflix Inc. partner was good news for a rival.

Early in the week, traders rushed into bullish Level 3 Communications Inc. options amid speculation that rival Akamai Technologies Inc.'s content-delivery services were performing poorly enough to cause Akamai to lose its Netflix contract. The companies denied claims of service problems and said they were still partners, though neither would comment on changes to their contract.